Dr Viktor Domokos Erling
Victor Domokos Erling, along with his younger brother, Rikard Erling (St. Amalthea’s father), was born in Budapest on old Urth (ca 2677) from Hungarian-German ancestry. Critics liked to point out that Erling and his brother were the result of bio-engineering, but the truth seems to have been that Erling’s great-grandfather Carl Reichardt was “spliced” for higher brain capacity. Early gene-splicing often produced unwelcome surprises, such as the increase in neural disorders found in many of the experiments during the First Republic, although the descendants of early “spliced” people often reverted in a few generations back to a more “normal” set of genes. The early Church later fought the charge of bio-engineering in St. Amalthea’s family, since it implied that St. Amalthea was not “chosen” but bio-engineered for her healing arts — along with the claims that she received her gifts via her uncle’s scientific tampering, a not-unsubstantiated criticism the Church fought with mixed success. A child prodigy, Victor Erling studied in Budapest, Vienna, and later Berlin, where he pursued mathematics at the Institute of Advanced Cosmology, taught by the famed Dr. Astrid Rank. Rank was known as one of the “Seven Cosmologists” who pushed the field into an all-encompassing study of all the sciences in an attempt to discover the unified Pan-Theory, which had beguiled scientists for centuries. Since the work of Dr. Rene Plasero in the 24th century, Cosmology had largely taken the place of traditional physics, and Erling sought to revive the latter field. The “New Cosmology,” which recognized Aristarchos of Samos as the founder, actually was a blend of Ur-Obun Astrology and human Cosmology. Physics, based on relativity and quantum theory, had its origins in the 19th–20th century scientific revolution on old Urth, beginning with Max Planck, but whose most famous founder was Albert Einstein. Dr. Rama Varuna (2415–2577) was the last important physicist and believed that the field had reached an unverifiable, metaphysical end, although her writings on the jumpgates opened up possibilities for the eventual creation of small “manufactured” holes in space/time. Erling’s motives in reviving physics remain unknown, except that he was fascinated by vibration theory. Some believe that he was influenced by the recent contact with the Ur-Obun, but many of their philosophical works were then imperfectly translated (around the year 2900, expert translations of their holy/philosophical works became more widely available). Erling pursued quantum chromodynamics until his attention shifted to virtual particles. Virtual particles obsessed Erling. Quantum mechanics allowed them to suddenly spring into existence, even when the energy necessary to create them was not available, and they were believed responsible for all the forces observed in nature. Erling postulated that virtual particles did not suddenly come into being but already existed on a higher vibratory level. His speculative theories held that the higher levels of reality connected to the lower ones, i.e. higher dimensions existed and were connected to lower ones, and vice versa. Energy levels followed certain laws, and there were more laws in the third dimension than the higher ones, but all energy could be effectively measured and weighed. This even included wave functions in the third dimension and, ultimately, the highest dimension/energy source, which Erling called the Nous. Erling held that all finites run to absolutes, and that the Nous encompassed all finite definitions of the absolute; Ultimate Truth, Infinity, God, Platonic Forms, the Good, the Mindscape, etc. This he set down in his Maxim of Absolute Certainty in 2692, which began his interplanetary reputation. Erling later studied and taught at the University of Copenhagen, but Urth politics eventually pushed him off-world. Various branches of Urth military units formed the organization called Memory, also known as the Renewed Republic, in an attempt to recreate the First Republic on Urth through an overthrow of the planet’s existing governments. Memory proved nearly successful, and most of Eurasia came under its sway. The foundation of its philosophy was a strange, half-poetic political book called Cronos Reborn, written by Col. Mandelbrot, a retired military man from the Pacific States. Mandelbrot placed great faith in cosmology and his poetic “Worlds of Ice,” which would help drive Urth’s rebirth as the capital world of the universe, once the outer worlds were brought back into the fold. In his work, Mandelbrot despised “the old physics and biologists who have brought the culture useless speculation, while the poets who use the sword will be the creators of new tomorrows.” Political pressure succeeded in closing down Erling’s newly created Department of Pan-Physics in Copenhagen, and Erling moved off-world, to join his brother, sister-in-law, and niece on Tethys in 2711. Erling on Tethys and After On Tethys, Dr. Erling managed to acquire research grants and established himself in the house of his brother, Rikard. In his laboratory he constructed VIRA — the Vibration Refraction Accelerator. Observing higher vibrations beyond the transverse wave motions of light vibrations, he traced these “ghost”, or G-vibrations, to a higher dimension. Retracting these vibrations and utilizing them in his lab led to some successes in swift ionic crystal growth, as well as accelerated plant growth. Industry took little official notice but proved impressed enough to continue funding. His niece, young Amalthea, was involved in an accident with the storage containment unit of VIRA, which knocked her unconscious. It was in this state that she first saw the universe as a living entity that needed healing. Some later Second Republic critics of the Universal Church point to this incident as a scientifically — not mystically — induced state in an attempt to downplay Amalthea’s mystical vision. However, it was not Amalthea’s first such experience, which happened when she became lost in the woods at age 10 and pinned beneath a fallen tree. An angelic voice woke her and guided her out from under the tree and back home. The Church critics treated this first incident as part of a child’s overactive imagination, or a state of shock, or did not explain it at all. Tethys politics, like Urth politics before them, interfered with Erling’s work. Major Huang, head of the Tethys Security Forces, attempted to seize the planet in the name of Terra and the Revived First Republic, in conjunction with elements on Urth already all too familiar to Erling. Huang was aided by the Urth political party Memory in funding, equipment, and advisors, while the Tethys consortiums were aided by New Istanbul in resisting Huang’s rebellion. In the early stages, Huang came close to dominating the planet, and Erling was captured and forced to work for the rebels. However, once the rebellion ended, he found his reputation darkened by some of his discoveries. Moving to Sutek, Erling despaired of his life’s work. He belatedly endorsed his niece’s ethical system and followed her, using his knowledge to help create healing machines, the “merciful technals” used by the Amaltheans, which drew on higher vibratory forces to accelerate healing in organic life. In Church lore, Erling is remembered as a Doctor, often (erroneously) of theology and became depicted as a rather comical, beloved figure in the train of St. Amalthea, always examining the stars overhead while walking into a solid object, such as a rock or tree. The date and location of his death is not certain; the most reliable source, written in 3093, places it as late as 2899 on Artemis. Local inhabitants call his reported tomb on Tethys the “Healing Stone” and claim that miraculous cures emanate from it. Other sources place his death on Urth in 2853 or Grail in 2897. There is a belief, especially common among the serfs of later centuries, that Erling thought he could contact Zebulon from beyond the present universe. According to the folklore, the old scientist attempted to speak to the Prophet in this fashion, and tales of his conversations with various reflective angels were recorded in the Book of Conversations, compiled by an unknown author in the 42nd century from earlier, now lost sources.